


Even Though My Work Is Unparalleled

by beanarie



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But we're not really dealing with Eames any more, are we? No longer a whole, so much as the sum of numerous, ever-changing parts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even Though My Work Is Unparalleled

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of a gift exchange for totally_loca and posted anon a year ago. A few months ago, my friend k8 read it for me and gave me some wonderful suggestions on how to improve the story. I quickly realized that if I started hard-core editing so long after the fact, I would never stop, but she still deserves thanks for making the effort.

Cobb and Saito are staring at each other so intensely Arthur expects someone's head to burst into flame. When it's broken, Arthur hears a faint click of keys, indicating that Saito has scrabbled for the phone to make the call he promised. So, in theory, Dominic is free now.

They fucking did it.

Voices drift over. Melinda, their flight attendant, and one other.

"The fasten seatbelt sign is on, sir. We are landing in-"

"Madam, have a heart. I haven't visited the gents in a week. "

Arthur looks to the back of the cabin, which allows Eames to hold his gaze several beats too long for just a passing glance. Anticipation rising in his stomach, giddy euphoria making his limbs light and boneless, Arthur follows.

A strong hand ensnares his wrist and pulls him into the bathroom. After two abortive attempts to get the door shut, Eames lets out a growl and nearly breaks the hinges. Arthur laughs out loud.

"Arthur," Eames rasps, his eyes shining. Arthur never knew his name could sound so amazing and filthy. "Can't tell you how long I've waited for this."

Arthur's smirk is millimeters from Eames's cheek, close enough that he can almost feel his own breath bouncing back to him. "Are you talking about the company... or the exotic location?"

"Size doesn't matter, darling. It's-"

"Is that a warning?" He huffs out another laugh. His nose just barely brushes against Eames's throat. "Trying to tell me something, are you?"

"Arthur. Arthur, Arthur. I am going to ask something of you. And I need you to take my request seriously."

"What?"

Deft fingers navigate past Arthur's belt, fly, and underwear to wrap around his cock. "Shut up."

 _That's doable_ , Arthur thinks, sliding his hand underneath Eames's shirt and pressing his lips against the faintly bristled jaw-line. _That's totally doable._

Later they share a hotel bed and it's even better, though less memorable.

~

Eames says it in between sips of coffee and bites of poached eggs and ham. And he says it in public, couched in a complaint. Everything about the presentation indicates that the words should have no impact whatsoever.

Arthur has just bitched about him falling asleep with the television on for the twelfth time and Eames is gesturing with his utensils. "It's a good thing I love you. Really, you should get down on your knees and thank whatever may be up there because you're pitiably unsuited for anyone else. Petty little man. Couldn't have occurred to you to turn it off yourself."

"I would have had to wake up all the way to do that," Arthur says. His heart is pounding.

Eames makes a noise around half a mouthful of ham. "Do not blame me for your bloody-mindedness."

Arthur wipes the smugness off of Eames's face with a bruising kiss. "I blame you for _everything_ ," he says breathlessly, grinning. Bits of ham slide down his throat. "It's just neater that way."

Eames laughs until he starts coughing.

That night Arthur is lying with Eames's head pillowed on his chest.

There is a difference between careful and calculated. Arthur, with his perfectly fitted designer labels and need for order, is careful. Eames is _calculated_. He is more adept at hiding himself away than anyone Arthur has ever known. Layers of artifice have to be ripped from every statement, every move he makes to get to his actual motivation. They're in a cutthroat business. It's the prudent way to be, even doubly so for him because his skills are in such high demand. It helps to put people off by being kind of a disaffected prick all the time. No one wants to be too sought after or too notorious. It's good to have a reputation, but not as the best of anything. That just invites trouble.

That wall has so many cracks now Arthur can no longer see it, only the man on the other side. Whole. Perfect, in his own twistedly imperfect way. Eames who used to be Jerome Gough, born in Armagh and raised in Galway. The brogue is all but gone at this point, buried under years of James Bond, MI5 pretense. When he's really genuinely exhausted or really genuinely sloshed, though, his words sound a bit more musical, his R's gain extra emphasis ( and that never fails to drive Arthur wild). Underneath it all, he is not only Irish, but Catholic and he's virulently anti-monarchy. In public, though, he puts on an attitude of going with the winner, rooting for the underdog, or complete political apathy. It depends on how he perceives the other people in the conversation and, most importantly, how he wants them to perceive him.

He really, really cannot abide violence against women. No one with a soul can say they enjoy it, but for him the rage is visceral, impossible to contain for longer than the time it takes to find an outlet, often a human-shaped one. The taste of ginger will put him off to a dish faster than anything else, but he's so fond of basil the smell of it almost serves as an aphrodisiac. His brain incapable of shutting down on its own, he tends to need background noise to distract him from his own thoughts, though sex can circumvent that. He prefers essays and short stories, because for him prose is best when dense, yet easily abandoned and revisited.

And he loves Arthur.

"I love you, too," Arthur says.

Eames warms Arthur's skin with a snore.

"Dick." Arthur pokes Eames in the ribs. "I take it back."

"Doesn't work like that," Eames mumbles, his eyes still closed. Half of his smile is pressed against Arthur's sternum.

~

The extraction was a rousing success. They have the name of the staff member responsible for the leak and they know what information got out. The mark, still asleep, never realized that he wasn't quite dreaming.

Everything is as it should be, except that Eames is bleeding. He fumbled the IV, equipment he's been handling for nearly a decade, tearing open the skin on his arm. The expression on his face unreadable, he's looking not at the arm, but at his hand.

"Hey," Arthur says. "Eames, are you with us?"

"Why? Have I gotten a better invitation?" He sounds lucid enough. As he looks down, he lets out a surprised sort of grunt. "...Oh. Bloody hell, how did that happen?"

Arthur doesn't come any closer, instead he tosses over a roll of bandages from the first aid kit. "What's wrong with your hand?" he asks.

Eames lets his eyes light first on the open PASIV case, then the unconscious mark. "We should be leaving, yeah?"

Arthur glances at Rima, the architect they brought in on Yusuf's recommendation, and ducks his head. "Yeah, we should." He cocks his head. "If you're done dripping DNA all over the crime scene? Okay then."

He waits until they're alone in the car to ask again. "Your hand."

"Nothing of consequence. It just..."

"Yes?"

"It felt too big."

"Does this happen often?" For the moment, he's more curious than concerned.

"In the beginning, it did." Facing forward, Eames idly pulls at his lower lip with two fingers and shrugs. "In dreams, though. Strange."

So he used to have difficulty getting used to the forgery, and today he had trouble getting used to himself. This feels like something that should be discussed further. But the tired smile on Eames's face reaches his eyes when Arthur touches his hair, and they did just complete three jobs back to back. Despite his best efforts, Arthur has never fully comprehended the process of forging. Eames is the one who would know if this is cause to worry or not, and he isn't bothered.

~

Eames mouths the back of Arthur's neck, tightens his hold around Arthur's stomach, and lets out a stream of endearments and encouragements that Arthur doesn't understand.

In the heat of the moment, it doesn't seem important. After Eames pulls out, though, Arthur finds himself wondering.

"What language was that?" he asks.

Eames folds over one side of his pillow and punches it until he's satisfied with his neck support.

"Sounded Slavic, but I know it wasn't Russian," Arthur says.

"Albanian," Eames says after a long pause.

"How many do you speak, seriously?"

"Dunno."

"How can you not-"

"Just don't." Eames turns to face the wall. "Never counted."

There is a barrier between them about two inches wide. By the time Arthur blinks the sleep out of his eyes six hours later, it's at least a foot.

~

Eames goes to Brazil for a job that lasts nine weeks. Afterward he spends as many nights routinely unlatching a fake leg that he doesn't have.

Arthur sits next to Eames on the sofa and watches as he rubs his shin to alleviate phantom pains that he has no reason to feel. "We need to talk to someone about this. Who can we talk to? Who else knows about forging?"

"No one," Eames says, picking up the remote to turn on the TV.

"I don't understand."

"I'm the only forger I know."

"But someone had to have taught you."

"No one taught me." He shrugs. "It's just something I found I could do. I took it upon myself to develop the skill and get better."

"This can't be right."

Within a few days, Arthur has something. There has been at least one other forger, Joaquin Orozco, a Salvadoran raised in Melbourne. Cobb knew him as part of the Australian contingent to the military project that pioneered dream-sharing. Said he was quiet and slight, but he was stronger than he looked and when he did speak he had the vocabulary of an English professor. A short search reveals that Orozco asphyxiated himself in his brother's garage four years ago.

Arthur resolves to keep looking.

~

On their way out of Langley, Virginia, Eames is driving. He doesn't usually have such a heavy foot, not in reality. Arthur tells him to slow down once, then there are flashing lights in the window.

As they wait for the officer, Eames pulls down the visor and checks himself out in the mirror. Arthur watches him sniff loudly and blink his eyes, preparing to bring up tears.

As the cop approaches the car, he grabs Eames's wrist, hissing, "You are _not_ a woman, Eames."

This should be a tale to tell when they're both drunk and amiable, to use against him and make him laugh until one of them pukes. Arthur should be able to keep this memory of the time Eames forgot he was a man for blackmail material. But he can't.

Eames pulls his arm away, defensive, bordering on hostile. "What a ridiculous thing to say. What's wrong with you?"

Arthur's fingernails dig into the palm of his hand. "Just be quiet. Please. Don't say a word."

Arthur buys a pair of plane tickets, but doesn't end up using them. They get a call from Paris. Miles is being harassed by upstart wannabe extractors who think he can teach them to use a PASIV. He needs help now.

Even when they're working in tandem, the invisible barrier between them continues to grow. The memories are there, but the emotional connection behind them is gone. It's as if Eames has become a fictional character in his own mind, like he read about the events of his life in books.

Arthur learns of another forger. Ani Kwakye, a native of Ghana. Quite pretty, apparently, if Liao is any authority to go by, and cleverer than she seemed. Easily underestimated.

She hung herself in a Johannesburg flat six years ago. The last news article he reads says that the flat used to belong to her mother. Arthur starts noticing similarities, possible patterns, but he doesn't want to. Analyzing the choices they made at the end does not accomplish anything. Whatever they tried to do, it didn't work.

~

A pair of dreamers they've worked with before taps them to take part in a blitz job. The project involves half a dozen extractors working simultaneously on three separate marks. Liao claims it's a simple enough plan and that none of the targets has experience with lucid dreaming. No forging necessary. Just straight thievery. So they go to Copenhagen.

"You know, Eames. As much as I like your forgeries, those particular talents won't be needed for this meeting. Thanks."

At Bellerose's greeting, Arthur turns. Approaching the circle is a Japanese girl of approximately fifteen, outfitted Battle Royale style in a boxy school uniform. "Okey-dokey," she says, making a circle with her thumb and forefinger. In her place appears a tall, slim-waisted blonde in a perfect little black dress. Arthur recognizes her as the one who stole Robert Fischer's wallet.

"Nice one." Liao nods approvingly. "Have you ever done twins? I've been meaning to ask you that for years."

Bellerose rolls her eyes. "We've got a lot to get through, children. Come on now."

Then Eames is an elderly Sikh with a full white beard and a turban the color of a robin's egg.

"Eames?" Bellerose says.

Then he's a black man in a crisp firefighter's uniform, mahogany skin on his bald head gleaming.

Then a bony white woman with frizzy graying hair, a broomstick skirt, and a clear distaste for bras.

Liao isn't smirking any more. "Shit," he says. "Arthur, are you seeing this?"

Instead of answering, Arthur shoots, Eames and then himself. Takes about fifteen seconds.

A couple of years ago, he wouldn't have put it past him, but this wasn't a prank. Arthur saw the extra long blur in between each change. He watched Eames concentrate, think of a person, their mannerisms, their likes and dislikes, their history. And he watched him fail to get a complete picture of himself and default to a forgery every time. Arthur also noticed something. The forgeries all seemed to come from jobs within the last year or two. That isn't a coincidence. Likely Eames can no more duplicate an old forge than he can be himself. They've become too intertwined.

"You can't be yourself in dreams." Arthur says the words over and over, unable to stop himself, but Eames barely reacts at all. "This is just so- You are _done_. No more jobs. I don't care what you say."

"Okey-dokey," Eames says.

Arthur takes Eames directly to Galway. They walk through the hallways of his childhood home. They visit the graves of his sister, who was murdered twenty years ago, and his mother, who had a fatal stroke just before Eames left the SAS and became a proper criminal.

Eames leans a pale pink rose against each headstone, then looks at Arthur.

"Did you have anything planned after this?" he asks in an American accent. It's non-regional, like the news correspondent he forged in Atlanta. "I'm kind of hungry."

They fuck after a dinner of fish and chips. Arthur thinks it can't hurt.

Eames used to have a habit of clipping his nails twice a week, a holdover from his cat burglar beginnings. That night he leaves bloody scratches up and down Arthur's back.

"Which one of them was into that?" Arthur asks. He was shooting for deadpan, but the words come out barbed. This trip was his last worthwhile idea. After this, there's nothing.

He wakes the next morning to an empty room.

Twenty four hours later, he learns about another forger. Aroon Thanglao, Thai national. His body washed up on the banks of the Irawaddy River six months before Ani Kwakye's death. It was ruled a suicide despite reports of marital strife. According to neighbors, he and his wife had been fighting with increased frequency for months before he died. Some believed she killed him.

~

Arthur doesn't dislike Tokyo. He is almost content teaching Saito's engineers and upper management to militarize their subconscious. The job suits his needs. He wanted something relatively mindless that he could walk away from on short notice.

Yusuf has a suggestion the next time Arthur calls to check in. "Have you tried looking under his real name?"

"To be honest," Arthur says, feeling like one of them has gone slightly stupid, but he doesn't know if it's Yusuf or himself. "No, I haven't."

"Now, hear me out. Eames would never. But we're not really dealing with Eames any more, are we? No longer a whole, so much as the sum of numerous, ever-changing parts."

"So because he's not himself, he's more likely to be himself." As he starts to tune out, his mind wanders back to Yamagato Hoshi and the ways Arthur can turn the man's whimsical, peace-loving projections into a trained kill squad. "Yusuf-"

"All those people meshing together in his head, it should be difficult for one to take precedence over the others, no? Makes sense for him to settle on the one name he can verify with a birth certificate and a social security number. Simpler."

Arthur finds Eames in Toronto. He is indeed going by his real name and he's gone soft, overweight. His hair is shorter and spiky. He's wearing a brown suit that looks like it came off a department store rack. He fits right in as the manager of the most popular Indian restaurant in the city, as much as anyone could fit into such chaos, and he speaks perfect Hindi to all the kitchen staff.

"What about your painting?" Arthur asks. "You could have done something with that. Why would you choose this? This place is... Is that baby vomit on your sleeve?"

Eames blinks at him like Arthur just blurted out a complete non sequitur. "I have to keep busy somehow. Can't just stay in the house doing nothing."

"You've never forged someone who could paint, have you?"

"I don't know. Perhaps not." The accent is vaguely French-Canadian. His speech is peppered with random Quebecois. Arthur can't readily think of who he's drawing from, and won't waste energy trying to find out. Within a day or two, Eames will be sounding like someone else anyway.

"Well, try. Come on. We'll get you some canvas. "

Eames has also never forged someone who was in love with Arthur, and forcing him to try recreating what that's like hasn't gotten them anywhere.

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing hoping for different results, but Arthur doesn't have a better choice.

~

After a day of conference calls and research for a consulting job, Arthur takes home a dinner that he barely eats. As Eames tucks in, Arthur picks apart his lemon chicken and runs a hand across his stomach.

"You're ill," Eames says.

Arthur shakes his head out of reflex. "It's nothing."

For a second Arthur thinks he sees something, a flicker of the man who smuggled him out of Taipei when he had a concussion and three broken bones.

Then Eames pushes away the food that Arthur plated, disgust causing a slight wrinkle across his nose.

"I trust you washed your hands thoroughly," he says. For the next two hours, he scrubs the bathroom and kitchen and disinfects every doorknob, faucet, and flat surface in the apartment.

The germaphobe, his name was Calvin Westlake. That job was right before Mal died.

Every day remains both the same and completely different from the one that came before. Eames still limps on occasion. Some weeks he'll only take baths, others, only showers. For a short time, he rejects deodorant, claiming that it clogs the lymph nodes and causes cancer. He splashes Tabasco on everything he eats for an entire weekend. He goes through a stint of paranoia about the utilities bill, which makes him skulk around unplugging appliances and shutting off all lights the moment one of them leaves a room. He loses his job after turning racist and making backhandedly horrible comments to some of the waitresses, then three days later quotes the Koran and prays due East every four hours or so.

He alters his hair and his clothes, often. The only constant is change. And it all feels perfectly natural to Eames. The only thing that gets a rise out of him is when Arthur acts like he shouldn't be the way he is.

Even given all of that, it's the flicker that makes it all excruciating. Being with Eames was bearable before he had a straw to grasp.

Telling hope to go fuck itself, Arthur boards a plane.

~

The thought of returning to subconscious crime leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Thankfully he's also very good at topside security. He hooks up with the new heir to a publishing fortune and begins the process of keeping the man safe and happy.

His stomach still aches, though, and it seems to spread. Concentration shot, attention span shot, he tells Jakob that he's fucking off for a few days, recognizing that the alternative involves possibly getting someone killed. His head feels strange, heavy, like he's carrying around a foreign object. It worries him for a short while. Then he reminds himself that he was never a forger, and his level of concern drops.

A day on his own makes him feel like he has no family and no friends. Realizing he hasn't spoken to anyone outside the city since his arrival, he calls Cobb.

"Arthur, thank God. Where the hell have you been?"

Arthur swallows. Cobb has changed quite a bit since the Fischer job, but he hasn't lost his tendency to react in unpredictably unsettling ways. "Why do you sound like my mother?"

"Are you joking? Your building was bombed."

Arthur views his surroundings lazily. "Must've slept through it."

"Toronto. Six weeks ago."

Right around when he left. "Eames-"

"Was out at the time."

Arthur doesn't realize that his chest is burning until he starts breathing again and it stops. "Good," he whispers.

"Yeah, but still. There were two bodies left unidentified by the blast. It was a week before we knew neither of them were you."

"I... um. Oh."

"Even after that, there was the possibility that you'd been taken by whoever set the bomb. I called morgues for you, Arthur."

"Well." Arthur tries to remember if he left anything behind that he would miss. "Sorry? I guess it was awful to let you think I was dead, even though I didn't know you had any reason to think that. And we've gone longer than this without speaking before. And I didn't set the bomb, or have the slightest idea who did. Ask Eames about it. He was the one living under his real name, despite having a Santa's list of enemies."

Arthur frowns to himself. Apparently the connection between his mouth and his brain has been altered.

Cobbs makes a sound somewhere between scorn and amusement. "Are you drunk?"

"No, I'm sick. Definitely haven't been drinking. ...Drinking alone. When have I ever done that in my life?" He rubs at the back of his neck. "I can't remember why I called you."

"Arthur, where are you?"

He answers before it occurs to him that maybe he shouldn't. "Reykjavik. Hotel something with a number. 501? No, 101."

"Stay put, all right? Eames will be there in less than twenty four hours."

His gorge rises. "That's not fucking funny, Dom," Arthur says, as calmly as he can. "Not at all."

"Shit. Arthur, hang on. Wait. How do you think I knew about-"

No longer interested, Arthur hangs up and stumbles to the toilet.

Hours later he wakes up from a nap, shakes off the disorientation, and makes his way to the after-hours clinic in Fossvogur. He doesn't leave the hotel to spite Cobb. He does it because he needs to get back to work and to that end, he has to seek medical attention. Jakob has been understanding. Too understanding. The man still has no idea the dangers inherent in suddenly having a multimillion dollar business and absolute power over the livelihoods of several thousand people. He possesses very little sense of self-preservation, as well. It takes him decades to realize when he's inadvertently pissed someone off, and that is a situation that comes up often.

Arthur does like Jakob, quite a lot. The man is exactly who he appears to be. Words can't express how refreshing that is.

"Sit down," the doctor says, waving at the exam table.

He sits.

She grabs his face, gently pulling down one bottom eyelid with her thumb and getting in close to shine a light in his eye. "Stick out your tongue." After a few questions, a few palpations, she stands and scribbles something in a file. "H.pylori, I think. Ulcer."

"Okay." He can accept that.

"First I'll give you something for the fever. Looks like you skipped a few meals. And a few night's sleep." She pats his cheek. "How long have you been incubating this little infection, hm?"

Her choice of words makes him flinch.

"Don't worry," she says, misunderstanding. "Some IV fluids, a course of pills, rest. You'll be fine."

As he sits in the taxi on the way back to the hotel, Arthur's head doesn't feel any more his than it did when he arrived at the clinic. For that he blames the doctor, and it leads to a number of unkind thoughts about the off-puttingly cheerful woman who reminds him of things that he'd really like to forget. The inner grumbling is still going on when he crawls under the duvet and drifts to sleep.

Upon waking, he's greeted by the sound of running water and the sight of a leather bag on the coffee table. Muddled, Arthur assumes that the bag belongs to Cobb, and the vindictive imp on his left shoulder convinces him to snatch the man's passport and hide it as payment for being such a martyr about the bomb thing. Upon unzipping the bag, the first thing he sees is the spine of a book. Salvador by Joan Didion.

Eames carries around Didion. Carried.

Then he finds the passport, which he opens and abruptly drops with trembling hands. Almost magnetically, he finds himself repelled until the backs of his calves hit the bed and he can't go any further.

All the moisture has disappeared from the inside of his mouth, leaving him wholly incapable of responding to the ghost who strolls in from the bathroom.

"You're awake," the apparition says. He's dressed in the black suit Eames wore on the plane from Sydney to LAX. At one point that shirt was missing two buttons, casualties of Arthur's enthusiasm.

Arthur lands heavily on the edge of the bed.

"Dreadful," Eames says, squinting at the bottle of H2 blockers on the table. It's all for show. He could have been here for hours. Probably counted the damn pills. "This is almost as bad as that time in Riyadh with the heat exhaustion. Remember that? You were a gargoyle. It took all the strength I had not to run away screaming. And the less said about Taipei, the better. You really make such an unattractive sick person."

The flippant tone is ruined by an undercurrent of anxiety. Arthur begins to doubt whether this is Eames after all. Eames never rambled, not out of nervousness.

Breathing in deeply, Eames gives him this look of longing and desperation and pain. " _Arthur_."

This would have to happen now, when he's just waking up from a thirteen hour quasi-coma, having slept through his alarm, and he's fuzzy-headed, he hasn't showered in four days, and he's missed at least one dose of his two antibiotics. That's exactly when this would happen.

"Face the wall," Arthur says thickly. "Do it."

Eames chews on the inside of his cheek like he's displeased, but complies.

Arthur retrieves the die from the pocket of his lounge pants and just... holds onto it for a while. He can't seem to stop staring at Eames's back.

"Go ahead and roll," Eames says. "I promise you. It's all right."

He continues to stare. Another few minutes pass as he shifts his focus to the die, considering.

If this is a dream, it wouldn't be so bad to just let it go on. For a little while.

"If you can't do it, I'll do it for you?"

Arthur doesn't trust his voice not to shake, so he doesn't explain that accepting Eames's offer would defeat the whole purpose of this.

' _How_?' he wants to ask. But still, he remains silent.

Eames sighs as if it isn't normal to have a conversation that consists mainly of thoughts projected to a person's back. "I know you're wondering what changed. It was you."

That doesn't sound right at all.

"Okay, it wasn't just you. The bomb helped. The, um, others, the forgeries, they didn't have you to lose. That was just mine. It was kind of a stone that started rolling, gathering the other bits that were me and not them."

Arthur runs his thumb over the pips of the die.

Eames crosses his arms. "Counting down one minute and thirty seconds. I won't be held responsible for my actions if you make me wait any longer than that. This has been the longest six weeks of my life."

Arthur chokes on a laugh. Only Eames. Only fucking Eames. Self-absorbed, narcissistic... He watched that man disappear for _months_.

"I know, I- Arthur, for fuck's sake."

He rolls.

"I am never working with you again," Arthur says, in lieu of telling him to turn around.

Eames does anyway, because he's fluent in Arthur. "I have no desire to go back to it, I assure you."

"Really."

"Yes, really."

It could be a lie. "Say it again," he demands.

"I'm through with dreaming, Arthur."

Several years ago, Arthur worked a job with someone who had the same ring-tone. He wasn't particularly bothered. Somehow he always knew when it was his phone ringing. That's how he got to know Eames. The truth _sounds_ different. He just had to learn to recognize it.

"Glad to hear it," Arthur says. His voice still doesn't sound right, but he no longer cares. "I don't think I could fake my death if this happened again. Not plausibly."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Eames whispers. Hands press against Arthur's arms, his neck, his face. Then their foreheads are touching and Eames apologizes over and over, until sorry is all Arthur can hear and the word has used up every scrap of meaning.

When they kiss, Arthur feels everything move, like the world finally shifted back onto its axis. And he lets himself be happy.


End file.
